Computer Aided FPD

Computer Aided Food Process Design and
Simulation (FEng 4132)
‘ Food is Life ’
2010 E.C
Introduction: Food process design
 A process is defined as a sequence of events directed to

a definite end
 Processes are termed “ chemical ” or “ food ”
 When one or more essential steps involves a chemical
reaction or conversion of food from one form to another
 Process design refers to the organization of food
processes and manufacturing methods
 While plant design refers to the configuration of the
whole processing plant
 Including1
 The processing/control equipment
 The utilities
 The plant buildings
 The waste treatment units
1
(Saravacos and Kostaropoulos, 2002 )
 The objective of food process or food plant design is to

economically produce food products, which are safe,
nutritious, and organoleptically acceptable to the
consumers
 Process engineering constitutes the specification,
optimization, realization, and adjustment of the process
 Simple equations, graphs and standard tables are used to
estimate the design parameters of unit operations
 Empirical data and rules of thumb are used to facilitate

the various design calculations, simplified equations and
short-cuts
 However advanced levels of process design are required
for complicated systems
 In more complex systems, computer-aided process/plant
design is used
 Food process design is somewhat different from other

design processes
 The main focus is not solely on process
improvement but has a strong relation to
product development, quality, and sensory
attributes
 The real challenge for process synthesis in food process
design is consumer behavior and market demand2
2
(Brenner et al ., 2005 )
Components of Food Process Design

The design process for a food processing system includes a number of
basic considerations:
 What is the main purpose of each unit operation (i.e. what
does the process perform)?
 What are the products to be used by the process?
 Development of process flow sheet, material and energy
balances, and preliminary sizing of process equipment
 Development of a schematic diagram and the components is
the first step in designing unit operations
Computer aided food process design
 Process design is one of the engineering functions that has been

impacted by computers3
 Complex programs that simulate the operation and a complete
process or individual units, have been developed by
 Central design departments of the major manufacturing
companies
 University departments
 Commercial software organizations
3
Peters and Timmerhaus, 1991
 Hundreds, even thousands, of programs have been written to solve

problems commonly encountered by chemical or food engineers
 An engineer may write a programming language code to solve a
particular design problem
 However program writing and debugging is usually quite time-
consuming, it is recommended that available software be used
 Spreadsheet software can be used effectively in process design. For
example, Microsoft Excel, is an effective tool for process design
 Spreadsheets offer sufficient process model "hospitality“
 They are connected easily and on-line with charts and
graphic objects
Computer-aided design
 Based on computer simulators and computer simulators are based
on process modeling
Modeling: is the procedure of translating the physical laws of a process
to mathematical equations in order to analyze or design the process
Simulation: is the appropriate software, which predicts the real
performance of a process
 Simulation is based on mathematical modeling plus the

appropriate graphics interface in a computer environment
Design: is a procedure of sizing and rating a process in order to obtain
a specific goal, such as economic production, product quality and
protection of the environment
 Sizing : is calculating the equipment size and characteristics
for a given process specifications
 Rating: is calculating the operating conditions for a given
process specifications
SuperPro designer: Introduction
SuperPro Designer
A comprehensive process simulator that facilitates modeling, cost
analysis, debottlenecking, cycle time reduction, and environmental
impact assessment of biochemical, specialty chemical,
pharmaceutical (bulk & fine), food, consumer product, mineral
processing, water purification, wastewater treatment, and related
processes.
Who is Intelligen, Inc.?

Established in the early 90’s - MIT spin off
SuperPro Designer
Biotechnology
BioPro Designer Bio-Fuels
Fine Chemicals
Pharmaceuticals
BatchPro Designer Food Processing
Mineral Processing
Water Purification
EnviroPro Designer Wastewater Treatment
Air Pollution Control
SchedulePro Scheduling and Debottlenecking

of Multi-Product Facilities
 BioPro Designer was the first product and focused on the needs of
the biotech industry
 Later the scope of BioPro was expanded to handle the needs of
other related industries, such as synthetic pharmaceuticals, fine
chemicals, etc.
 This led to the introduction of BatchPro Designer
 In the mid 90’s, development of a tool for environmental
applications, including wastewater treatment, water purification,
and air pollution control processes
 That effort led to EnviroPro Designer
 SuperPro is the combination of BioPro/BatchPro (which do not
exist as brand names any longer) and EnviroPro
 SuperPro can be used to model and evaluate a wide variety of
chemical, biochemical and related processes
 SchedulePro is a versatile production planning, scheduling and
resource management tool
 It complements SuperPro as a modeling tool for projects involving
modeling, design, capacity analysis and debottlenecking of multi-
product facilities that operate in batch and semi-continuous mode
 SchedulePro also handles production planning and scheduling of
existing manufacturing facilities on a day-to-day basis
SuperPro Designer Functionality

 Process modeling capabilities, including:
– Generation of material and energy balances
– Environmental impact calculations
– Resource tracking
– Process scheduling
– Equipment sizing and costing
– Capital and operating cost estimation
 Cycle time analysis and debottlenecking
 Scale-up/scale-down
 Technology transfer
The Role of Process Simulation and Scheduling Tools in
Product Development and Commercialization
IDEA GENERATION
Project Screening, Strategic Planning
Development Groups
PROCESS DEVELOPMENT
Evaluation of Alternatives
Common Language of Communication
Development Groups
FACILITY DESIGN Process Engineering
Equipment & Utility Sizing and Design Corporate Environmental
Tech Transfer
MANUFACTURING
On-Going Optimization, Debottlenecking Manufacturing
Production Scheduling, Capacity Analysis
 At the preliminary stage of idea generation, process simulation is

mainly used for assessing potential projects in order to determine
which ones justify further effort and resources, and to “weed out”
projects with less potential
 In process development, scientists and engineers investigate the
various options available for synthesizing, purifying, characterizing,
and formulating the final product
 At this stage, simulation tools are used to evaluate alternative
processing scenarios from an economic, cycle time reduction,
and environmental point of view
 Cost-of-goods analysis facilitates identification of key steps

of a process, which have high capital or operating costs or low yield
and production throughput
 To determine what types of lab and pilot plant studies should be
performed in order to improve those high-cost or low-yield
sections of the process
 Cost analysis at the process development stage facilitates
decisions related to in-house manufacturing versus outsourcing
 When a process progresses from development to manufacturing,

simulation tools facilitate activities such as
 Technology transfer
 Process fitting
 Facility design
For example, the availability of a detailed process model enables
efficient technology transfer by providing a comprehensive description
of the process in a format that can be easily understood and modified
by the recipients
 Adjustments to the model are required when moving the

process from the development site to a manufacturing site in
order to scale up the process
 In addition, if a new plant must be designed or an existing plant
must be retrofitted for the process, the model can be used to
determine the size of the equipment as well as the required
capacity of supporting utility systems that will need to supply
steam, electricity, purified water, etc.
 Estimations of the plant’s expected labor requirements are also
done with such tools
 Once a process has been implemented within the manufacturing

facility, simulation tools are used for debottlenecking studies and on-
going optimization of that process
 In addition, multiproduct plant modeling tools play a very important
role in production planning and scheduling
 They facilitate capacity analysis and long term planning, and also
enable day-to-day production scheduling by accounting for
constraints related to the limited availability of resources such
as equipment, labor, utilities, material inventories, etc
SuperPro designer:Specifying the mode of operation
 After you choose to start a new process file, the ‘Process Operating
Mode’ dialog box will appear
SuperPro designer: Specifying the mode of operation
 You can also modify these settings at a later time by clicking Set
Mode of Operation on the Tasks menu
 When the process operating mode is set to ‘Batch’, all stream flows
are displayed on a per batch basis
 On the other hand, when the process operating mode is set to
‘Continuous’, all stream flows are displayed on a per-hour basis
NB no scheduling information is necessary for plants operating
continuously
Registering Components and Mixtures

 All the components that will be used in a process model must be
registered first.
 To register components (in other words, to make them available
in your process model), select Pure Components > Register,
Edit/View Properties on the Tasks menu
 NB pure components ‘Nitrogen’, ‘Oxygen’, and ‘Water’ are
registered by default in every new process model and cannot be
deleted
 For this example process, you will need to add ‘Heptane’ to the
list of registered pure components
 If a component is not available in the existing component
libraries, you can click New on the ‘Registered Pure Components’
toolbar to create a new component for your process model
 This will be automatically added to the list of registered
components
 This will be automatically added to the list of registered
components. For example , you will need to create components
‘A’, ‘B’, and ‘C’.
Adding streams
 After you add a unit procedure to the process flowsheet, you can
add streams. There are three types of streams:
 Feed (input) streams
 Intermediate streams
 Product (output) streams
Feed (input) streams
 Do not have a source unit procedure and in batch processing they
are mainly utilized by charge operations
Intermediate streams
 Connect two unit procedures and they are used to transfer
material from the source to the destination unit procedure
Product (output) streams
 Do not have a destination unit procedure. All streams are
automatically identified with a stream tag
Figure 3. The example process flowsheet with streams added

Initializing Unit Procedures
 Each unit procedure added to the process has its own operating
mode setting. This can be either:
 Batch/semi-continuous, or
 Continuous
Batch/semi-continuous (cyclical) unit procedures
 Can contain one or more operations, whereas continuous unit
procedures are equivalent to unit operations
 There are unit procedures that are inherently batch/semi
continuous (e.g., the Batch Vessel Procedure in a Reactor)
 You can have batch/semi-continuous unit procedures in continuous

process plants
 Other unit procedures are inherently continuous (e.g., the
Centrifugal Pumping unit procedure)
 Thereby, you can have continuous unit procedures in batch process
plants
 Note that the operating mode of inherently continuous unit
procedures is initially set to batch/semi-continuous in batch process
plants and continuous in continuous process plants
ADDING OPERATIONS TO UNIT PROCEDURES

 The next step toward initialization of unit procedures is to add
relevant operations to each unit procedure
 This step is generally required for unit procedures that are
operated in batch/semi-continuous mode
 For convenience, some inherently batch/semi-continuous unit
procedures may initially contain one or more operations when
added to the process (e.g., the Plate and Frame Filtration
Procedure used in this example initially has a Cloth Filtration
operation)
Building a model in a batch process simulator
 The first step in building a simulation model is always the collection
of information about the process
 In this case, draft version of process descriptions and block flow
diagrams, which contained information about materials input and
operating parameters were available
 Missing data forced the team to make assumptions after consulting
with the operations department
 Rough estimates were used at the start of the project for unknown
process parameters and operating times
For example flow diagram of production of ethanol from cheese whey
 As the project progressed the assumptions are updated several

times and are thoroughly documented in order to comprehend
and track the development of the various models
 The steps of building a batch process model are generally the
same for all batch process simulation tools
 The best practice is to build the model step-by-step, gradually
checking the functionality of its parts
 The registration of materials (pure components and mixtures) is
usually the first step
 Next, the flow diagram is developed by putting together the
required unit procedures and joining them with material flow
streams
 A unit procedure is the recipe of a processing step that describes
the sequence of actions required to complete that step
 Or it is defined as a series of operations that take place
within a piece of equipment
 Operations are added to unit procedures and their operating
conditions and performance parameters are specified
 A batch process model is in essence a batch recipe that describes
how to make a certain quantity of a specific product
 A single basic processing step is called a unit procedure as opposed

to a unit operation, which is a term used for continuous processes
 The individual tasks contained in a procedure( e.g. transfer in,
ferment, transfer out, CIP etc. ) are called operations
 A unit procedure is represented on the flowsheet with a single icon
that represents the main equipment used
 For example in the figure below displays the dialog through which
operations are added to a vessel unit procedure
 On the left hand side of the dialog , the program displays the
operations that are available in the context of vessel procedure
 On the right hand side, it displays the registered operations for the
edited procedures
 The two level representation of processing tasks(operations in the
text of procedures) enables users to describe and model batch
process in detail
 For every operation within a unit procedure, the simulator solves a
mathematical model representing the material and energy balance
equations
 Equipment sizing calculations are performed based on the results
obtained by the material balances
 If multiple operations within a unit procedure dictate different
sizes for a certain piece of equipment
 The software reconciles the different demands and selects an
equipment size that is appropriate for all operations
 The equipment is sized, so that it is large enough (e.g. vessels are
not overfilled during any operation) but not larger than necessary
in order to minimize capital costs

 Equipment sizes also can be specified by the user in which case the
simulator checks to make sure that the provided size is adequate
 For certain types of equipment, minimum size requirements also
are taken into account in order to satisfy constraints such as
minimum stirring volume in vessels
 The outputs of batch process simulators include the following:
 visual representation of the entire process
 Material and energy balances
 Sizing equipment and utilities
 Estimation of capital and operating costs
SuperPro designer: Components and mixtures
 Process scheduling and cycle time analysis
 Throughput analysis
 Environmental impact
COMPONENTS AND MIXTURES
 The material that is present during the physico-chemical
transformations of your process is represented in SuperPro Designer
by Pure Components and Stock Mixtures
 Sometimes are collectively referred to as ingredients
 Ingredients are primarily used to characterize (as amount and
composition) the flow of all streams and equipment content
 Stock mixtures in particular are used mostly to expedite initialization
of feed streams
 They come very handy when certain raw materials (e.g.,
buffers) are always consumed by the process
 Sometimes ingredients are also consumed directly by an operation
as special agents (without appearing on a stream)
 For example: a CIP operation employs some material as
cleaning agent, etc
 In order to facilitate the reuse of components and mixtures in several
process simulations, SuperPro Designer comes equipped with
component and mixture databanks
 SuperPro Designer’s component databank provides for the use of

multiple source databases
 The following databases can be used to provide component-
related properties:
 The ‘Designer’ database
 The ‘User’ database
 The DIPPR database
 The PPDS database
 The ‘Designer’ (or ‘System’) databank for components includes
approximately 530 members
 The ‘Designer’ databank for mixtures comes with over 40 entries
 The ‘Designer’ portion of the databanks is maintained and
occasionally updated
 The ‘User’ segment of the databanks for components and mixtures
is part of the ‘User’ database
 Allows for the user to create his/her own extensions of the
‘Designer’ database
 By storing there his/her own pure components and stock
mixtures according to their specific needs
 It is originally empty (upon installation of the software)

PURE COMPONENTS
 A pure component or sometimes mentioned simply as component
 Represents the most elementary species that make up the
composition of streams and vessel contents
 All mass and energy balances in SuperPro Designer are performed
at the component level
 NB that a pure component does not necessarily have to represent a
single-molecule species
 There may also be times when you may need to have two ‘pure
components’ representing the same species but in different forms:
 For example, you may need two different pure
components representing the same material in dissolved
state and in crystal form
 You do not need to know precisely all of a component’s property
values in order to introduce it in your simulation as it is possible that
the simulation models you have included in your process only need
a limited set of component properties
Pure Component Registration
 Before you are able to use a material in your process as a pure
component, you must define:
 Its physical properties (molecular weight, density, heat capacity,
critical properties, etc.)
 A name tag by which this component will be known to the rest
of the process elements (streams, operations, etc.)
 Since formal names (represented by the ‘Name’ property) tend
to be very long, SuperPro Designer lets you define a shorter name tag
(called the ‘Local Name’) for each component present in your process
 Every component’s ‘Name’ and ‘Local Name’ must be unique within

your process
 Instead of having to describe each component’s properties from
scratch, you can use one of SuperPro Designer’s component
databanks as a source to pull components into your process
simulation (with their property values already defined)
 If you cannot find the component that you need in the databanks
you can introduce a new (your own) component
 When starting a new process simulation, probably one of the first

actions that you take is to introduce the components that will
participate in the process
 It is not necessary to provide an exhaustive list at the very
beginning, because the members of the component-registry in a
process file can be modified at any time
 However, as good practice, it is recommended that as soon as you
start a new simulation project, you should introduce (register) as
many of the components that will be present as early as possible
 As of most of the initialization parameters in streams and

operations depend on the list of components present in the process
(e.g., stream composition, component separation factors, key design
components, etc.)
 If you add components after having initialized such operations,
default values will be provided for the newly introduced
components but you may be forced to revisit the i/o simulation
dialog of the affected operations anyway
A typical input/output (i/o) simulation dialog for an operation

 Sometimes you may need to register a component for the needs of

your current simulation but you can’t find it listed in any of the
component databanks. At this point, you have two options:
 Introduce the new component in the user databank first
then pull it from the ‘User’ database into your process
simulation using the Pure Component Registration Dialog
 Introduce the new component directly in your process
simulation from the Pure Component Registration Dialog
Special Components
 Certain components in the set of registered components in a
process file have a special meaning for the application’s simulation
engine
 These components are selected from the Pure Component
Registration Dialog. Currently, there are three such components:
 The ‘Primary Biomass’ component: The component assumed to
represent the biomass in the current process (recipe). Portions
of other components that are considered intracellular (or
sorbed) will be assumed to be incorporated into the mass
(amount) of this compound
 The ‘Water’ component: The component designated to
represent the liquid form of water that makes up a large
percentage of the biomass.
 The ’Activity-Reference’ component: If a component has been
designated as the ‘Activity-Reference’ component then its
concentration, along with the potency index or basis
STOCK MIXTURES
 A stock mixture is simply a mixture of pure components and/or
other stock mixtures with a given composition (in mass or molar
percentage)
 Used to represent materials that are provided and consumed by a
process ‘as-is’ in the form of a mixture
 Examples of such process consumables might be buffers,
acid solutions, base solutions, etc.
 Stock mixtures can be used to initialize process input streams

 They can be employed directly by an operation (without being
present on any stream) as special agents (e.g. in a ‘Clean-in-Place’
(CIP) operation as a cleaning agent, in a ‘Gas Sweep’ operation as a
sweeping agent, etc.)
 The most important property descriptions that you need to provide
for a mixture is its composition and its price
 In order to facilitate the reuse of mixtures without having to
describe all their properties from scratch each time, the application
keeps a list in a stock mixture databank
 Since stock mixtures can only be used as inputs to a process, they

only exist to describe the composition of input streams of a process
 You will never find the names of mixtures as part of the composition
description of an intermediate or output stream
 Stock mixtures lose their identity once they are come in contact
with other mixtures or pure components
 SuperPro Designer converts mixture flows into their equivalent pure
component flows and performs material balances and reports
results based on pure component flows and compositions
Stock Mixture Registration
 In order to make a stock mixture available to be used as an
ingredient in the composition of an input stream in your process,
you must first register it
 Registering a stock mixture, (just as registering a component) simply
means that you introduce this mixture into your process file and
provide an accurate description of its properties
 You may register a mixture simply by importing it (and thereby
copying all its properties) from the stock mixture databank (in the
‘Designer’ or the ‘User’ database)
 Alternatively, you may introduce an altogether new mixture that
does not exist (currently) in the stock mixture databank
 Modifying the properties of a registered stock mixture that was

pulled from a mixture databank does not affect the property values
of the original mixture record in the databank
 It also will not affect the mixture properties of the same mixture
used in simulations by others sharing the same mixture databank(s)
with you
SuperPro designer: Streams
 Streams represent the flow of bulk material or discrete entities from
one unit procedure to the next
 Streams can be direct process inputs, intermediates or outputs
 All attributes of input streams (composition, temperature, pressure,
etc.) must be initialized by the user whereas the main attributes of
intermediate and output streams are calculated by the application
after the mass & energy (M&E) balances are executed
 Streams are displayed on the process flowsheet as polylines made
up strictly of horizontal and/or vertical segments
 When drawing a stream, always start from the source and finish
with the destination
 After each stream is drawn, it is assigned a name that is

generated using a automatically by the application using a prefix
(like “S-”) and a number
TYPES OF STREAMS
 Depending on the nature of the material that is represented by a
stream, SuperPro Designer distinguishes between two types of
streams:
 Bulk Streams
 Discrete Streams
 Bulk streams carry material measured by flowrate units: (mass-
or-volume units) / (time units), or (mass-or-volume units) / batch
 Part of the material can be in liquid, gaseous or solid phase but
SuperPro Designer distinguishes only two phases: liquid/solid and
vapor
 The flow of discrete streams on the other hand, is measured in:
(Entities) / (time units) or (Entities) / batch.
 Each discrete stream carries one and only one type of entity (e.g.
‘12oz Plastic Bottle’).
 The definition of the entity carried by an input stream is done as
part of the initialization of the stream
 You do not have to explicitly set the stream type as bulk or discrete
 SuperPro Designer automatically decides their type based on the
context (type of port that it is connected)
 If you start a stream by clicking on a procedure’s output port,
SuperPro Designer automatically creates the correct stream type
(bulk or discrete) depending on the type of the port that you
started
 When creating an input stream, SuperPro Designer will decide the
nature of the stream only after you have clicked on a destination
port
 The application will not allow you to hook-up a discrete stream to a
bulk port and vice versa
 Every stream must have either a source or a destination procedure
or both
 There can’t be a stream that has no source and no destination
procedure
 Based on the presence or absence of a source and/or a destination
procedure, a stream is characterized as:
 Input Stream: a stream that has no source procedure
 Intermediate Stream: a stream that has both a source
and a destination procedure
 Output Stream: a stream that has no destination
procedure
SuperPro designer: Procedures & operations
 Building a process requires putting together all the processing steps
that are necessary to carry out the full recipe
 Material is supposed to flow from one procedure to another via
process streams
 Sometimes material enters a process as a direct input to a unit
procedure; sometimes material exits the process as a direct output
from a unit procedure
WHAT IS A UNIT PROCEDURE?

 A unit procedure in the context of a SuperPro Designer simulation
is defined as a sequence of actions representing the most
elementary physicochemical transformations supported by the
software all assumed to take place inside the same equipment
resource
 When modeling a batch process (also mentioned as a batch recipe)
you may think of a batch unit procedure as simply a set of
sequential operations; for example: ‘Charge A’, ‘Charge B’, ‘Heat’,
‘Stir’, ‘React’, ‘Transfer Out’
 A unit procedure may include any number of operations
 Even though the operations are listed sequentially, they may be
timed to occur concurrently
 For example, you may specify to have operation ‘Stir’ execute
continuously while ‘Charge A’, Charge B’ and ‘React’ are set to
execute concurrently
 A unit procedure typically engages some kind of main equipment
resource (Reactor, Fermentor, Diafilter, Nutche filter, etc.)
 In batch processing, two or more unit procedures can share the
same main equipment resource
 The types of operations that can be included in a unit procedure
depend on the type of equipment resource (Reactor, Diafilter etc.)
hosting the procedure and the operating mode of the unit
procedure (batch or continuous)
 Once a given procedure type is selected (from the list under the
main menu Unit Procedures) then the equipment type assumed as
a host is automatically selected
 For example, if you select to include a gel filtration procedure, the
equipment resource assumed as a host is always a GFL
chromatography column
 If there could be different hosts for the same procedure, then a
separate entry in the Unit Procedures menu will be present
 For example, there could be any one of several different host
equipment for a batch vessel procedure: a stirred tank reactor, a
fermentor, a seed fermentor, etc
 When modeling a continuous process (e.g., a typical wastewater
treatment plant), you may think of a (continuous) unit procedure as
simply a single unit operation: a CSTR or an aeration basin simply
represents a container vessel that receives flow continuously,
processes (reacts) continuously and outputs flow continuously
 Since the (single) operation represented by the unit procedure is
active (‘on’) all the time
 When a batch unit procedure, such as chromatography, is set to
operate in a continuous surrounding, SuperPro Designer needs to
infer the amount of material that gets processed per cycle
 The time used to collect this material (holdup time) may be set by
the user or it may be dictated by the operating requirements of the
batch procedure
 For unit procedures whose cycle duration is set directly by the user
(in other words, all contained operations have process times, setup
times and turnaround times directly set by the user) the holdup
time is assumed to be equal to the duration of the entire unit
procedure
 The cycle duration is not necessarily the sum of the execution times
(durations) of the operations in the procedure’s queue since there
may be some operations that do not start as soon as the previous
operation in the sequence ended (in other words, there may be
some idle time between back-to-back operations in the sequence)
OPERATION SEQUENCE
 Unit procedures contain a sequence of one or more operations
 Most unit procedures contain already an operation by the time
they are first created
 For instance, when you insert a microfiltration (batch) unit
procedure, it already contains a ‘Batch Concentration’ operation
 You can, of course, add more operations later
 Some unit procedures contain no operations when they are first
created
 For example, all the Batch Vessel Procedures (in a Reactor, in a
Fermentor, in a Seed Fermentor, etc.) start out without any
operation in their sequence and therefore they simulate no action
 They are considered ‘general purpose’ unit procedures and as such
they do not contain (by creation) any pre-determined operations
 NB you can add as many operations as you wish in the operation list
of a batch unit procedure
 However, the types of operations available depend on the specific
type of unit procedure
 For example, for a Microfiltration (Batch) unit procedure the
available options for operations are:
 CIP (Clean-in-Place)
 Concentrate
 Flush
 Hold
 SIP (Steam-in-Place)
 In a Gel Filtration procedure on the other hand the list of available
operations are:
 CIP (Clean-in-Place)
 Elute
 Equilibrate
 Hold
 Load
 Regenerate
 SIP (Steam-in-Place)
 When the time comes to simulate the process step represented by
a unit procedure, SuperPro Designer’s simulation engine executes
the actions that each operation represents one-after-another
(always) and in the order that they appear in the unit procedure’s
list.)
It is important to understand material and energy balance

 For example, if you insert first a ‘Charge-A’ then a ‘Charge-B’ and
then a ‘Heat’ operation, this is exactly what will be simulated
WHAT IS A UNIT OPERATION?

 A unit operation represents the simplest physico-chemical
transformation step that can be modeled by SuperPro Designer
 It can represent a simple activity, such as ‘Charge’ or a ‘Mix’, or a
more complicated activity, such as ‘Distill’ or ‘React’
 Operations are strung together to form a unit procedure and unit
procedures are put together to make up a process (or a recipe)
 Sometimes a unit procedure may simply include only one operation
 This is actually the norm in continuous processes
 In that case, a unit procedure is equivalent to a unit operation

 In batch processing however, most unit procedures include more
than one operations
 Not all operation types supported by SuperPro Designer are
available in a given unit procedure
 The actual list available depends on the type of unit procedure and
the type of equipment resource used to host the procedure
 A typical unit operation has many attributes; some are very specific
to the nature of the operation and some are common to all
operations
 For example, a ‘Heat’ operation has as one of its attributes the
temperature target for the heating or the heating rate; these are
attributes akin to this operation type alone
 All the attributes of an operation can be viewed and edited (if
allowed) by its input/output (i/o) simulation dialog
 The i/o simulation dialog of an operation is made up from several
tabs
 Each tab presents a group of variables
 Some variables are required to be set by the user (inputs) and others
are calculated by the simulation engine (outputs)
 Sometimes a variable may be considered an input or an output
depending on other operation-related or procedure-related settings
(e.g. operating mode), or even equipment-related settings (e.g. sizing
options)
 Most input variables come preset to some reasonable default values
Material and energy balances
 Material and energy balance calculations are employed to obtain a
complete quantitative description of the operations or the entire
process
 Material and energy balances produce quantitative values for the
flows of raw materials, products, byproducts, wastes, effluents and
energy in or out of the system for further use in detailed design or
specifications of process equipment
 Material and energy balances are essential not only for the design
of food processes and processing plants, but are also useful tools in
calculating recipe formulations, composition after blending, process
yields and separation efficiencies
 Chemical composition may vary depending on the season, origin,

variety, and growing conditions, even within the same food type
 Because of these compositional variations, information on the
physical, chemical, and thermal properties of raw, intermediate and
final products found in various bibliographic sources or obtained
using empirical relationships may not reflect the actual values and
may result in inaccuracies in material and energy balances and thus
experimental determination is usually needed
Fundamentals of Material Balances

 Process
 Process Flow Sheets
 Analysis of a Process: System Approach
 Process Classification
 The State of a System
 Processing Under Steady and Unsteady States
 Material Balance Equations
SuperPro designer: Material and energy balances
 You can Solve M&E Balances on the Tasks menu to perform the
simulation
 This will cause the program to perform the mass and energy
balances for the entire process, estimate the sizes of all pieces of
equipment that are in ‘Design Mode’, and model the scheduling of
each piece of equipment
Example
Calculate the total mass balance and component mass balance for
mixing ingredients to make 25 kg of beef sausages having a fat
content of 30%, using fresh beef meat and beef fat. Typically, beef
meat contains 18% protein, 12% fat and 68% water and beef
fat contains 78% fat, 12% water and 5% protein.
Problem
A fruit preserve using 45 kg fresh fruit is to be prepared. The
amount of pectin used is 210 g (150 grade) and the amount of citric
acid is 300 g. Pectin is added as 3% solution, which is prepared by
mixing 3 parts of pectin with 14 parts of sugar and 83 parts of water.
Citric acid is available as 50% solution by mass. For the present case,
assume the final product should contain 20% invert sugar, which is
provided during boiling by the inversion of sucrose used in the
formulation. If the fruit contains 12% soluble solids, calculate the
mass of sugar to be used and the amount of water to be evaporated
to produce 100 kg preserve. Is this formulation consistent with the
standard which specifies a fruit/sugar ratio of 45/55?

Computer Aided FPD

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Computer Aided FPD

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Computer Aided Food Process Design and

Simulation (FEng 4132)

 A process is defined as a sequence of events directed to

 The objective of food process or food plant design is to

 Empirical data and rules of thumb are used to facilitate

 Food process design is somewhat different from other

Components of Food Process Design

 Process design is one of the engineering functions that has been

 Hundreds, even thousands, of programs have been written to solve

 Simulation is based on mathematical modeling plus the

Who is Intelligen, Inc.?

SchedulePro Scheduling and Debottlenecking

SuperPro Designer Functionality

 At the preliminary stage of idea generation, process simulation is

 Cost-of-goods analysis facilitates identification of key steps

 When a process progresses from development to manufacturing,

 Adjustments to the model are required when moving the

 Once a process has been implemented within the manufacturing

Registering Components and Mixtures

Figure 3. The example process flowsheet with streams added

 You can have batch/semi-continuous unit procedures in continuous

ADDING OPERATIONS TO UNIT PROCEDURES

 As the project progressed the assumptions are updated several

 A single basic processing step is called a unit procedure as opposed

in order to minimize capital costs

 SuperPro Designer’s component databank provides for the use of

 It is originally empty (upon installation of the software)

 Every component’s ‘Name’ and ‘Local Name’ must be unique within

 When starting a new process simulation, probably one of the first

 As of most of the initialization parameters in streams and

A typical input/output (i/o) simulation dialog for an operation

 Sometimes you may need to register a component for the needs of

 Stock mixtures can be used to initialize process input streams

 Since stock mixtures can only be used as inputs to a process, they

 Modifying the properties of a registered stock mixture that was

 After each stream is drawn, it is assigned a name that is

WHAT IS A UNIT PROCEDURE?

It is important to understand material and energy balance

WHAT IS A UNIT OPERATION?

 In that case, a unit procedure is equivalent to a unit operation

 Chemical composition may vary depending on the season, origin,

Fundamentals of Material Balances

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